November 3, 2016
October Farmer’s Wife Blocks
These blocks have been done since mid-October, but I have been…busy, busy.
No. 75, Nan
Cotton+Steel fabrics
No. 76 Nancy
Cotton+Steel fabrics
No 77, Nellie
Cotton+ Steel fabrics, but this one needed higher contrast in the pink fabric, which has some navy in it. The center dark angles are not showing up properly.
No 78. Old Maid
Tula Pink ladybugs and Cotton+Steel plaid
No 79 Patience
Cotton+Steel
No 80 Patricia
Cotton+Steel. This one is subtle and probably could have used more contrast, but I like it. I LOVED to play jacks when I was a girl.
No 81 Peony
Cotton+ Steel
I was sailing along and then hit this block. The hand piecing version in the book made much more sense. In the foundation piecing organization, everything swirls around that tiny central square. It was a nightmare to sew. Half seams, y seams, odd angles, and so on. I really think whoever did the foundation piecing for this book did not do a great job. There are tons of needless difficulties and seams that do not abut, which makes the blocks too bulky in places. I had to go back and toy with seams or clip into them over and over.
No 82 Pharlemia
Here’s another very difficult block–needlessly made more so by the foundation piecing pattern. I threw out the directions, but the way the pieces are combined in the foundation pattern is just plain ruthlessly difficult.
Friend Becca Babb-Brott (Sew Me A Song Etsy store) threw her Farmer’s Wives blocks up on a design wall at the October retreat (more on the retreat later) to check out color choices. These blocks just went up randomly to try to get some visual notion of what is going on with color choices. She does not have them all “up” here, but aren’t they wonderful? The grey background looks flat in this photo, but it is shimmery and lively in person and is wonderful with the blocks. This quilt is AMAZING.
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